When Kathy Nasstrom asked me to serve as the guest editor of a special section of the Oral History Review commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Oral History Association (OHA), she also charged me with the task of figuring out what the emphasis of that anniversary section should be. We batted some thoughts around; we spoke to several of our oral history colleagues. In the end, it was Mary Larson, former OHA president and professor of library service at Oklahoma State University, who came up with the idea that we should focus on “the history of oral history,” and that each of the essays should trace the development of a specific theme in the literature. Larson’s suggestion was compelling because it enabled us to examine some of the issues that lie at the very heart of oral history methodology and also, as seemed appropriate for an anniversary issue, to look back at the past half century of oral history practice. Finally—an added advantage—it also seemed a way of highlighting the contribution of the Oral History Review itself. Once we had determined the focus of the issue, I then identified three areas that had been topics of discussion since the beginnings of the formalized literature and practice of oral history in the 1960s and ’70s. Four of our most knowledgeable and thoughtful oral history practitioners agreed to participate in this endeavor. Mary Larson graciously consented to contribute to the theme she herself had suggested by writing the essay on what I called “the medium of oral history”—i.e., the perennial question of how oral history should be preserved and made available. Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki signed on for a jointly authored essay on ethics and intersubjectivity. And Dan Kerr agreed to write the essay on socially engaged oral history. To set the process in motion, I sent each participant a selection of the literature—about fifteen articles total—on their assigned topic. Because of the limitations of my own time and knowledge, because this issue commemorates the founding of OHA and is concerned with tracing the development of oral history primarily in an American context, and because the lists were intended to spur the authors’ own thinking rather than to offer a definitive overview of the topic, my selections were inevitably limited. I focused largely on a handful of pathbreaking books and anthologies and on the Oral History Review and the early OHA colloquia, with only a smattering of articles from such journals as the British Oral History or the now-defunct International Journal of Oral History. My lists were intended as a kind of catalyst—something to prime the authors’

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客座编辑介绍

当 Kathy Nasstrom 邀请我担任纪念口述历史协会 (OHA) 成立 50 周年的《口述历史评论》特别版块的客座编辑时，她还要求我负责弄清楚该周年纪念版块的重点是什么应该。我们思考了一些问题；我们采访了我们的几位口述历史同事。最后，是俄克拉荷马州立大学前 OHA 总裁兼图书馆服务教授 Mary Larson 提出了我们应该关注“口述历史的历史”的想法，并且每篇文章都应该追溯文学中特定主题的发展。拉森的建议很有说服力，因为它使我们能够研究口述历史方法论的核心问题，并且，回顾过去半个世纪的口述历史实践，对于周年纪念问题似乎是合适的。最后——一个额外的优势——它似乎也是一种突出口述历史评论本身贡献的方式。一旦我们确定了问题的焦点，我就确定了自 1960 年代和 70 年代正式的口述历史文献和实践开始以来一直讨论的三个领域。我们四位知识最渊博、最有思想的口述历史从业者同意参与这项工作。玛丽·拉尔森 (Mary Larson) 慷慨地同意为她自己提出的主题做出贡献，她写了一篇关于我称之为“口述历史的媒介”的文章——即口述历史应该如何保存和提供的长期问题。Anna Sheftel 和 Stacey Zembrzycki 签署了共同撰写的关于伦理和主体间性的文章。丹克尔同意写一篇关于社会参与口述历史的文章。为了启动这个过程，我给每个参与者发送了一份关于他们指定主题的文献——总共大约 15 篇文章。由于我自己的时间和知识的限制，因为这个问题是为了纪念 OHA 的成立，并且关注主要在美国背景下追踪口述历史的发展，并且因为这些列表旨在激发作者自己的思考，而不是为了提供对该主题的明确概述，我的选择不可避免地受到限制。我主要关注一些开创性的书籍和选集，以及口述历史评论和早期的 OHA 座谈会，只有来自英国口述历史或现已解散的国际口述历史杂志等期刊的少量文章。我的清单旨在作为一种催化剂 - 为作者准备的东西